News: Supreme Court Slams RERA: CJI Says Better Abolish It-12-02-2026

The Supreme Court has sharply criticised real estate regulatory authorities, with Chief Justice of India Surya Kant saying they do nothing beyond facilitating builders in default and that the court would not mind if the institution were abolished, Bar and Bench reported.

Sitting with Justice Joymalya Bagchi, the CJI said it was high time every state revisited and rethought the very constitution of the authority. Told that a retired IAS officer had been appointed to a RERA, he remarked that the bodies had become rehabilitation centres in every state. The people for whom the institution was created are depressed, disgusted and disappointed, he said, and none of them gets effective relief.

The remarks came during an appeal against a Himachal Pradesh High Court order staying a state notification that moved the state RERA office from Shimla to Dharamshala. The High Court had noted last year that the decision was taken without identifying alternative premises, and stayed the notification dated June 13, 2025 along with a later order adjusting 18 outsourced employees in other boards and corporations, saying it would render RERA defunct.

On February 12 the top court set that aside and allowed the shift. So that people affected by RERA orders are not inconvenienced, it directed that the appellate tribunal move to Dharamshala as well.

This is not the first such observation. In September 2024, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan called RERAs rehabilitation centres for former bureaucrats who had frustrated the scheme of the Act. That hearing concerned an appeal against a Delhi High Court judgment dismissing pleas to restrain banks and financial institutions from charging pre-EMIs or full EMIs from the petitioners.

The RERA Act of 2016 was meant to regulate the sector, promote transparency, protect homebuyers and ensure timely delivery.

Homebuyers’ body FPCE said the Chief Justice had echoed its concern in the strongest terms. Its president Abhay Upadhyay, also a member of the housing ministry’s Central Advisory Council, said that nine years after the law was passed there is still no assurance that a RERA-registered project will be finished on time or that promises to buyers will be kept. If RERA cannot meet expectations, he said, it must either be fundamentally reformed or its existence reconsidered.